entrap

Other forms: entrapped; entrapping; entraps

If you entrap someone, you entangle or snare them, as if you'd caught them in a trap. Your family might entrap you in their elaborate summer plans, despite your wish to take a vacation all by yourself.

The expectations of other people — or your own high standards — can entrap you into the feeling you should always do well in school or pursue material success. Another way one person might entrap another is more deliberate, by setting a trap or playing a trick. A police officer might entrap a suspect, persuading him to commit a crime in order to make an arrest. The Old French root is entraper, "catch in a trap."